On this page you will find poems by living writers, only one at a time. They will change from time to time. If you like one especially, please go and buy the book. These are all people currently in publication. 

 

First Day at School Roger McGough   A millionbillionwillion miles from home Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?) Why are they all so big, other children? So noisy? So much at home they Must have been born in uniform Lived all their lives in playgrounds Spent the years inventing games That don't let me in. Games That are rough, that swallow you up.   And the railings. All around, the railings. Are they to keep out wolves and monsters? Things that carry off and eat children? Things you don't take sweets from? Perhaps they're to stop us getting out Running away from the lessins. Lessin. What does a lessin look like? Sounds small and slimy. They keep them in the glassrooms. Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine.     I wish I could remember my name Mummy said it would come in useful. Like wellies. When there's puddles. Yellowwellies. I wish she was here. I think my name is sewn on somewhere Perhaps the teacher will read it for me. Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea.

Love is ... Love is feeling cold in the back of vans Love is a funclub with only two fans Love is walking holding painstained hands Love is. Love is fish and chips on winter nights Love is blankets full of strange delights Love is when you don't put out the light Love is Love is the presents in Christmas shops Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops Love is what happens when the music stops Love is Love is white panties lying all forlorn Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm Love is when you have to leave at dawn Love is Love is you and love is me Love is prison and love is free Love's what's there when you are away from me Love is... ( Andrian Henry 1967, The Mersey Sound, Penguin)

 

Prayer By Carol Ann Duffy Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands and stare at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.   Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth enters our hearts, that small familiar pain; then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth in the distant Latin chanting of a train.   Pray for us now. Grade I piano scales console the lodger looking out across a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls a child's name as though they named their loss.   Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer - Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

 

This Be The Verse   They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.   But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats.   Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself. PHILIP LARKIN

 

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